Tantalizing Tales — May 2025 — Part Two

Hello, dear readers! This week, we’re looking at books coming out in the back half of May, starting with a terrific series debut!

Tori Eldridge’s Kaua’i Storm was a long time in the writing. Despite being a native Hawaiian who can trace her ancestry back to 1783, Ms Eldridge felt far less confident about setting a book in the islands of her birth after years of living in the diaspora. Her fifth book finally tackles the issues of her island home, with what she hopes is the proper respect for the people and culture.

After ten years away as a park ranger in Oregon, our heroine Makalani Pahukula has come back to Kaua‘i for her grandmother’s birthday celebration. But she struggles to connect with her people and feels detached from their values, simpler way of life and slower pace. She’s also worried by the news that her cousins — a failed college football player and a rebellious teenage girl — have gone missing. Makalani hopes that they just ran off for fun, but when hunters find a dead body in the Keālia Forest Reserve, she fears that something ominous is at play.

Making use of her ranger tracking and survival skills, Makalani embarks on a search for her cousins, despite facing resistance from the locals and even from her own family. In her pursuit of the truth, she discovers that the investigation will open her heart, reawaken her love for the land she calls home, and strengthen her bond with those she loves.

Because no matter how long she’s been away, for Makalani, Hawai‘i is in her blood.

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Family also lies at the heart of our next selection, tho with a far more sinister bent. Award-winning actor and producer Blair Underwood presents Sins Of Survivors, a fierce and dazzling crime family saga written by filmmaker Joe McClean.

In 1908 Alabama, precocious young Benjamin Carter brings deadly consequences down upon his father’s head when he dares to use a white drinking fountain instead of the “colored” one.

With his fierce and protective older brother Jasper, Ben escapes Alabama, joining the Great Migration to Black Bottom, Detroit’s flourishing Black neighborhood. There, the brothers rise from the ashes to become kingpins of this new community, owning businesses, playing politics and diving into Detroit’s violent criminal underbelly.

Through their wit and grit, Ben and Jasper establish the Carter dynasty, securing a prosperous future for their families. But heavy are the heads that wear the crowns. Seeing their children come of age — young men and women fueled by ambitions of their own — the brothers clash over the direction in which to steer the Carter empire.

With the scent of brotherly discontent on the wind, competing Detroit power players will use every advantage they have to bring this dominant family to its knees.

If you couldn’t get enough of the movie Sinners (as I couldn’t!) then this is definitely one not to miss — even if there are far fewer vampires involved.

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Family of a different kind makes up the heroes of Ammar Merchant’s The Palace Of Sinners And Saints, a brand new thriller set in a fictional — tho still rooted in reality — Middle Eastern kingdom.

Irfan Mirza is the ultimate killing machine. Kidnapped as a child and forced to train to become an elite gun-for-hire at an “orphanage”, he’s grown up to become a ruthless freelance mercenary.

In a wealthy Middle Eastern kingdom surrounded by desert, the despotic King Nimir is determined to quash all dissidents calling for free elections. Doesn’t matter if you’re a billionaire, cleric, influencer or journalist: anyone who’s dared to challenge King Nimir’s regime has vanished without a trace.

Unfortunately for the king, the latest person he has “disappeared” just happens to be Irfan’s sister. Now things are personal, and Irfan Mirza doesn’t like personal. He likes justice.

Assembling a ragtag team of specialists, a.k.a. his “family”, Irfan sets off on a wild rescue mission, determined to save the imprisoned from a medieval fortress, now transformed into a heavily fortified black-site. The palace is surrounded by endless stretches of uninhabited sand, difficult to approach and impossible to escape. But impossible is just another obstacle for Irfan when it comes to protecting the people he cares about.

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Another group of misfits has to pull together in pursuit of justice, albeit by far less action-packed means, in Freya Sampson’s latest feel-good mystery, The Busybody Book Club.

Having recently moved to Cornwall, Nova Davies started the St Tredock Book Club in order to impress her new colleagues at the community center. Unfortunately, it’s so far been a disaster. The five members of the club disagree on everything, from the books they read to the biscuits they eat. To make matters worse, six thousand pounds is stolen from the community center during one of their meetings, putting both her job and the whole center at risk.

Suspicion for the theft falls on book club member Michael, who disappears right before a dead body is discovered at his house. The police think he’s simply run away, but the other members have their own theories. Agatha Christie-superfan Phyllis is determined to prove that Michael is a murderer as well as a thief. Secret romance reader Arthur believes that Michael eloped with his mistress, while teenage sci-fi fan Ash thinks that much darker forces are at play.

In order to find Michael and recover the money, these bibliophiles must put aside their differences, even as they have their own secrets to protect. With inspiration from their favorite fictional sleuths, they won’t rest until they’ve cracked the case and everyone is safe at home where they belong.

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Strained relations also lie at the center of the prolific Lee Hollis’ latest comedic mystery, My Father Always Finds Corpses. I love their Hayley Powell Food And Cocktail series, and am sure that this is just as zippy and fun, if perhaps a little more poignant.

Former child star Jarrod Jarvis has a bad habit of discovering corpses, stretching back over twenty years. Unsurprisingly, a lot has happened since he last solved a string of real-life Hollywood murders. Nowadays, Jarrod lives in Palm Springs, where he writes and directs local theatre while quietly grieving the loss of his partner, police detective Charlie.

Jarrod hasn’t disclosed much about his sleuthing past to his daughter Liv, who’s just earned a degree in criminal justice. There’s been distance between them since Charlie’s death, and Jarrod’s unsure how to bridge that gap. Liv, meanwhile, has put her career on hold in order to help her filmmaker boyfriend Zel. His latest documentary idea is to track down the surrogate who gave birth to Liv. Annoyed by Zel’s pressure tactics, Liv goes to confront him at his apartment… and discovers that someone has bludgeoned him to death.

Jarrod rushes to Liv’s aid, surprising his daughter with his ease around a crime scene and his ability to fire off questions like a modern-day Columbo (tho with better hair and wardrobe.) Another shock is quite how many people had motive to want Zel dead, including a Russian film professor, a former First Lady and a sexy Secret Service agent. Together, Liv and Jarrod comb for clues across the sun-drenched Coachella Valley, growing close again in the process. But while there’s nothing like murder to bring a family together, this father-daughter reunion may be short-lived as long as a killer is on the loose . . .

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Grief is also the fuel that drives the protagonist of our next novel, Richy Craven’s humorous and moving Spirit Level.

Danny Hook loses his best friend Nudge in a drunk driving accident. Then he starts seeing Nudge’s ghost… but only while he’s drunk.

Danny is dealing with a lot in his aimless twenties. He can’t drive and has had the same job since he was a teen. The girl he’s infatuated with has a new boyfriend, and now he is seeing a ghost, for no reason he can comprehend.

The one thing Danny does know is that Nudge’s ghost can’t hang around forever. Mr Craven navigates the complexities of grief and male friendship with wit and dark humor here in his debut.

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And finally, in a totally different kind of debut, we have Hazel McBride’s A Fate Forged In Fire, an epic, immersive Celtic romantasy filled with a sizzling enemies-to-lovers romance, dragon bonds, a queen in hiding and more!

To become the first queen in centuries, a powerfully blessed blacksmith must use her wits and fire magic to overthrow the corrupt powers ruling her kingdom — while also fighting her growing desire for one of her dragon-riding adversaries — in this first book of a sizzling Celtic-inspired fantasy romance duology.

Once a territory built on matriarchal rule and values, Tìr Teine has grown frail from a long line of fruitless kings. The most recent of these kings have ruled under the influence of the True Religion, an oppressive group who have steadily poisoned the region with their anti-magic teachings.

Born to rule and blessed by fire, Aemyra has begrudgingly lived in hiding rather than risk her life in court, waiting in anticipation for the current king’s death so that she may bond to his dragon, claim her throne and protect her people. After the king dies, Aemyra is ready to take what is rightfully hers… but her ambitious plan is foiled as she’s thrust into a game of vicious plots and politics instead.

Her greatest adversary is Prince Fiorean, a dragon-rider and one of the most powerful fire wielders in the territory. Cold, arrogant and blindly supportive of his corrupt family, he is everything Aemyra despises. But as chaos engulfs the court, they find themselves forced to forge an uneasy alliance, that quickly ignites into something more dangerous than either of them expected.

Behind enemy lines and slowly falling for her so-called adversary, Aemyra uncovers just how far the rot of corruption has spread, and what she may have to sacrifice in order to claim her throne.

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Let me know if you’re able to get to any of these books before I do, dear readers! I’d love to hear your opinions, and see if that will help spur me to push any of them higher up the mountain range that is my To Be Read pile.

And, as always, you can check out the list of my favorite books in my Bookshop storefront linked below!